"It does represent a shift in strategy to a certain level compared to what the outlook probably was five years ago," he said.

"The US has a significant amount of gas and potentially a low cost development environment compared to Australia at the moment, so I think it just shows their outlook is that there could higher rates of return with US projects."

Mr Bulseco says Australia is a high cost LNG producer.

"The only cost advantage that Australia has over the US is the shipping cost from the US to Asia, because the distance is higher, but that can be significantly eroded given the high cost environment that Australia is operating in now," he said.

"The global LNG market is definitely changing, obviously, the US with shale gas, East Africa has now opened up given the huge gas discoveries offshore there."

Mr Bulseco says LNG projects where a final investment decision has been made will go ahead but others, such as Browse, will be at risk.

"The projects that have a post FID (final investment decision) and sanctioned, and future expansion of those projects will probably still be competitive because a lot of the capital expenditure has sunk and you've got the security of supply because the project's de-risked," he said.

"I think future projects, particularly by the majors, will always be ranked on a global basis and I think the higher rates of return projects will be given preference.

"The next indicator will be Woodside's final investment decision on Browse.

"My expectation is that it won't go ahead, and if that greenfield development doesn't go ahead in it's current onshore form and goes to floating LNG, I think that is another indicator that costs are getting higher."